Hi, this is the first challenge I've ever entered :)
Here's my first concept sketch for "Spectacular"

Basically, what I want to do is have a scene of an entire ant colony. Many little holes in the ground where armies of ant come out of. I want it to look as if its an army of soldiers preparing for a war, marching out their barracks, and then perhaps place someones boot in the picture to give a sense of scale to it all.

Please give suggestions. :P

Nomad

09 September 2005, 11:37 AM

Nice idea :thumbsup:

Why do not try termites? they build vertical nests, it could be more impressive than those flat holes... also you can try a scene in a forest... just ideas... hope it helps.

Good luck :bounce:

scorpion007

09 September 2005, 04:46 AM

sounds like a good idea, do you know of any good reference photos of termite nests?
will consider this.

Here's a little experiment with the camera and ant flowing out of the holes.
Below is a WIP ant model, without his arms and legs, and antennae. I modelled them before, but got rid of them and want to redo them, they didnt look too good.

Here's a test I did with mental ray displacement, on a low poly ground mesh, using a lume landscape shader, with a photo as a base for displacement.

Nomad

09 September 2005, 05:57 AM

Here you have a lot of termites nests: http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=pl&lr=&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2005-07%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=termites+nest

In the link the first one in the grass looks cool :D

Neeno

09 September 2005, 06:15 AM

hey dude.. i like your idea, original but can be expanded. you have alot of ways to go in this.. maybe some ants that have utilised Ant Science (he he) and created weapons and machinery to make these small insects the most powerful army of their kind.. think about it, i think it will make it much more spectacular..

scorpion007

09 September 2005, 06:25 AM

Nomad, thanks for the link.. Damn, that exact picture you're talking about doesn't load :P what luck :/ Anyway, I sorta see what you mean, and I'll try to figure something out.

Neeno, interesting thinking, but with that i thought that It might be too unrealistic for this particular challenge, but it would definately increase the scene's spectacular-ness heaps!
Maybe even have the ants build their little futuristic city integrated with all the ant holes in the landscape, and for some irony/humour, have a human boot step on some part of the city and crush their little infrastructures that took them so long to build :D

Here's a start on the texturing, and a little test compositing some passes...

I also rigged him up partially, that's why his head is turned upwards a bit. His legs and body are animatable to a degree too.

I want to try out another camera view, where one ant is standing somewhere high up (like a cliff for him) and peering down onto the rest of the landscape, which in time will have lots of little ant holes and millions of ants pouring out of them down below.

JeroenDStout

09 September 2005, 01:15 PM

I like you idea, but alike what Nomad said - perhap something more as just ants? Someone flooding the nests :)?

(hehe, yes, guilty of that, but only once)

handlebar

09 September 2005, 04:00 PM

I really like your concept Alex, maybe some kind of cross section shot would be cool so you see the ant activity below ground in the nest as well as on the surface. Many natural history documentaries use this to great effect.

scorpion007

09 September 2005, 11:32 PM

The Parrot, lmao! Thats pretty funny man :D Will think about it, I'll draw up another concept with your ideas.

handlebar, thanks! cool idea. Time for some sketches to see how this will work...

And here is yet another concept, this time showing the cross section in the ground, so you can see whats going on down below.. I kind of like this camera angle better, looks to be more dramatic/interesting..

Your thoughts? Which one do you like better?

prophetpandp

09 September 2005, 01:44 AM

Good Idea, I will have to agree that a little more needs to take place though. how about showing how this ant coloney is defending its home from a speices of ants that has not been discovered yet. A speices that may have come from a remote part of our rain forests. ants that are more fearce and odd looking from the regular ant. maybe a little ant and a little beatle half bread. = Just a tought.

Here's an updates concept #3. I agree that the scene needed something, so I added a huge army of invading ants/other species from the other side, so its gonna be a big war scene about to erupt :) (LOTR, 'cept with ants lol)

Ok, heres a little previz according to my latest concept sketch. The red guys are the friends, and the blue guys are invading. The two ants at the front are at the lookout, and spot the huge army coming, so all the soldiers come out from the holes to meet them in battle! hehe.

Here's where I'm at for the foreground for now.. I'll post more info tommorow, if anyone cares...

Which do you guys prefer more?

uiron

09 September 2005, 11:38 AM

the "before" one looks more appealing just because of color variety. i would try to avoid that monochromatic look.

scorpion007

09 September 2005, 11:57 AM

hi uiron, thanks for the input. I'll consider that.
The layer manager for 3ds max I'm using is Blur's TheOnion script. It may or may not be better, it used to be heaps better, but now its a bit out of date -- although it is still quite cool. Its free, so have a play and find out for yourself.

Note that its not 100% bug free on max7, but they do tell you "use at your own risk".

uiron

09 September 2005, 02:34 PM

bugs are what i fear using this 5.0 max plugin on 7.0. well, as by description it adds nothing i would need that much, standart layer manager will be enough for me.

shakes

09 September 2005, 09:04 PM

nice work so far- really good modelling and texturing on the ant. I think I like the first shot the best- the colours are more lush. nice one!

scorpion007

09 September 2005, 03:08 AM

thanks for the feedback shakes

Im also thinking maybe making the background a desert scene, with sand dunes..

Or for a more drastic change, maybe have the ants human sized, so that way the sand dunes will be more to scale then, and you can see the beautiful sky as well, otherwise if we are looking low into the ground then there's no sky room.
what you think?

handlebar

09 September 2005, 09:34 AM

Definately like the before render best, great progress, will be curious to see how you handle the invadeing army.

Here's an update.
Ok, there's too much stuff new to document really -- basically, I made a new desert for the BG, added the ant army (not final), changed the shaders for the ants (added SSS), added some GI, and re-comped everything, this time in Photoshop just for a quick test.

Hi. cool idea. i realy like it
comment: 1.fur are to much bright. i prefer to dont use a fur.
2.you can add some sea creature fossil in front stone.
3.your desert is to much small.
4.create high contrast image forground darker and background lighten, or vise versa. it will give you more depth.
5.add fog.
good luck man.:thumbsup:

scorpion007

09 September 2005, 08:41 AM

Hey, thanks for the great ideas man! :)
I was trying to think how to get a better sense of depth to the picture.

About the desert size.. hmm, i dunno - I was thinking maybe having the ants be Giant Bull ants or something :) Maybe the size of humans or something?
I dunno, what you think?
Otherwise I guess I would have to make the ants and desert more appropriate scale.

Hmmm.. not sure how I would add a fossil to the cross-section but its a good idea -- goes off to research :)

pitiwazou

10 October 2005, 08:55 AM

interesting concept ;)

good luck to you !

shakes

10 October 2005, 08:02 PM

i think i prefer the one without fur. one thing though- could you have the left side of the tunnel come in more, so it's more visible like the other side? that way you would instantly see it's a tunnel. just a thought. looking great!

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